In thinking about news organizations’ uses of drones, there are a variety of potential applications. News Corp’s The Daily used a drone to gather footage of disaster areas in Mississippi and North Dakota. While unobjectionable journalistically, it may have violated FAA regulations in doing so, as the agency currently prohibits strictly commercial use of drones. I asked the Daily about the FAA investigation and whether they had legal certification for use of their MicroDrone MD4-1000. “We’re not going to comment on our newsgathering,” said a spokesperson.

This is a you tube video of this model drone –

Microdrones MD4-1000 behind the scenes (real live footage- not stabilized by software)